About

Dubler Studio Kit is a real-time vocal recognition MIDI controller. It offers up a never seen before way to translate your musical ideas into reality, using the one instrument you’ve been practising since birth— the voice.

Novelist + PREM with Dubler Studio Kit

With Dubler Studio Kit you can hum a melody or synth pattern, beatbox to trigger a virtual drumkit, or manipulate effects and filters with a “hmmm”, “laaaa” or “oohhh” sound— all in real-time.

Dubler Studio Kit is a real-time vocal recognition MIDI controller.

Our kit offers up a never seen before way to translate your musical ideas into reality, using the one instrument you’ve been practising since birth— the voice.

The kit comes as—

The Dubler software — a virtual MIDI instrument ( a desktop application for Mac + PC) Compatible with any production software [DAW]. It is not a plugin or VST.

"When you’re producing, staying inspired is key...I was able to quickly lay down my drum pattern right on the spot by beatboxing— something I always dreamt of doing." — Kai Hadaway

Whilst our campaign is live, we’ll be continuing to test Dubler Studio Kit with musicians in their daily, music-making lives to ensure that we get the best product possible to you. Keep an eye out in our updates and across our social channels for more >>>

With Dubler Studio Kit, effects, notes and samples are controlled absolutely live based on the timbre of your voice, not applied by post-processing like some other voice-to-MIDI solutions.

Dubler Studio Kit the ultimate multi-dimensional MIDI controller— think of it as a MIDI keyboard and an MPC rolled into one, but controlled using the voice!

Dubler learns your voice in under 60 seconds. 👇

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That enables you to:

Select and trigger samples: Use beatboxing sounds to trigger drum samples or click, clap, or tap to trigger any virtual instrument or sample in your DAW. This includes velocity control and envelope following. 👇

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Synth control: Control pitch, velocity, envelope and pitch bend all totally live by singing and humming. 👇

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Effects control: The timbre of your voice (eg; ‘hmmm’, ‘laaa’ and ‘ooohh’) control 4 CC MIDI dials. Map these to any effects, filters, synth or DAW parameters you like. 👇

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Advanced control: Use in conjunction with loops, other MIDI instruments, for post produced automation... and loads more! 👇

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Dubler Studio Kit allows you to capture things that would otherwise be impossible with traditional desk-bound MIDI inputs.

Take ideas for beats, melodies and musical compositions from your head directly into your production software [DAW].

Augment live beatboxing performances with virtual instruments and synths.

Vocally control multiple parameters and effects of a synth, in real-time, as you lay down the melody two handed on a MIDI keyboard.

Play a guitar part and simultaneously sketch out the rhythm for the corresponding drum track, vocally.

Luna Neptune- [Left to right] 1. Triggering synths with her voice, whilst playing guitar. 2. Micing up guitar and using it's output as a MIDI trigger. 3. Using clicking as a trigger.

Use Dubler to give human expression to digitally tracked instruments.

Train Dubler to non-vocal sounds such as clicking, clapping and stomping — Dubler’s training is sensitive enough to tell the difference between your left and right hand-click.

Manipulate 4 control dimensions, at the same time as playing a melody and simultaneously crafting the envelope of the audio. Only the voice can capture that level of expression!

Vocally control multiple MIDI effectswhilst sending pitch information. You could map vocal sounds to control different chord effects in your DAW. For example, you can set it up so an ‘ooohhh’ makes a single note into a Major chord and 'eeeeeee’ makes a single note into a Minor chord. Then if you sing “ooohhh eeeeeee ooohhh ooohhh” You’ll get Major, Minor, Major, Major.

These are just a few examples - we can’t wait to see how much further you will take it!

Note: Packaging design is yet to be finalised and may differ slightly from this.

The kit comes as—

The Dubler software — a virtual MIDI instrument (desktop application for Mac + PC) Compatible with any production software [DAW]. It is not a plugin or VST.

The Dubler Software is a virtual MIDI controller for Mac and PC that’s compatible with any music production software [DAW]. The set-up is minimal, opening up Dubler is just like plugging in a MIDI keyboard.

Dubler Studio Kit works with any DAW

USER PROFILES:

You can store an unlimited number of profiles on the Dubler Software.

PERFORMANCE MODE:

Train up to 8 vocal [or audio] triggers.

MAPPING MODE:

This mode simplifies the mapping of midi CCs from the Dubler app to your DAW. It also allows you to map triggers to different MIDI events.

Planning to use Dubler on stage? We’ve built in noise resistance algorithms to avoid accidental drum triggers in noisy environments.

10ms LATENCY

We get lots of questions on latency. We’ve run several end-to-end tests, and land at a mean latency of approximately 10ms.

[Note: This is before sending out MIDI — the MIDI and the DAW will likely add a further 5-10ms on top of that.]

The example test below lands at 11.5ms, which is low enough to feel unnoticeable.

Simulation of end to end latency in Dubler. These are used in our tests to maintain our app quality in new builds. The two humps happen when an onset sounds falls at the end of a prepared audio buffer.

Minimum System Requirements:

macOS X 10.12 or later

Windows 7 or later (Windows 10 recommended)

Intel Core i5 CPU or equivalent

4GB RAM (8GB or more recommended)

OpenGL-capable graphics

100MB free disk space

To ensure the best possible experience on Windows, we are creating a custom low-latency ASIO driver for the Dubler microphone. This will make the user experience much simpler and avoid the issues associated with using a generic driver like ASIO4ALL.

Our low-latency USB microphone has been custom designed for use with Dubler software. We use a high-end microphone capsule and built-in audio interface. This enables us to control the gain structure, profile the frequency response, and fine tune the Dubler software for a known input. This ensures a reliable, accurate and low latency out-of-the-box experience for our users. We are working with a highly respected microphone manufacturer to produce the devices and have selected components that are optimal for our use case. For example, the Dubler microphone has a double shock housing to reduce accidental MIDI triggers resulting from handling noise.

Being USB it’s great for being at home, in the studio or on the road— and you don’t need a separate audio interface to use it.

40% discount on retail price [£600]

EDUCATION PACK: Ten [10] Dubler Studio Kits

£1750 (around $2300) — Quantity: unlimited

42% discount on retail price [£3000]

Includes:

The Dubler software — a virtual MIDI instrument (Mac or PC) x10

The Dubler USB microphone (with mic clip) x10

1.2m USB Cable x10

If you're based in London, we'll come and help you get set-up and give you a Dubler tutorial! For everywhere else, we offer a remote [Skype] set-up and tutorial to get you up and running in your classroom.

We anticipate the following delivery times:

📦 Estimated delivery date October 2019.

Mac only users may have their orders fulfilled sooner.

We’re based in London — a global hub of incredible music-makers, artists and producers!

For the past three years, our technology has been through numerous design iterations and prototypes. We’ve now finalised all functionality and our most recent pre-launch beta kits are already in use with a bunch of international artists and producers. It’s been a long process of R&D, building, testing, long nights and music-filled days, but, with a lot of excitement, we can now say we’re truly ready for launch. We can’t wait to see the Dubler Studio Kit in the hands of musicians, producers and performers all over the world.

The idea for Dubler Studio Kit started out as a university project for Vochlea Music founder, George, whilst studying at the Royal College of Art in London. Since then, he’s been an Enterprise Fellow at The Royal College of Engineering (‘17-’18), been a finalist in the Interaction Design Awards (‘17), a SXSW Audio & Music Innovation finalist (‘17) and won the SXSW Accelerator Pitch (‘18)— all with his vocal recognition technology for music making, Dubler.

George presenting Dubler at the Abbey Road Demo Day 2018

Some imagery from our development over the past 3 years.

George's original idea sketches for the Dubler Microphone from 2015. Originally, it was designed so that the software and hardware were embodied in one handheld device.

Our first working Dubler Microphone prototype — by this stage we had separate software offering.

Feature in The Sunday Times and George using the original prototype.

Earlier development UI [left] and our current 2019 UI [right].

Original UI development sketch and current Dubler software UI in use.

To help support the development so far, we've received small seed investments from individuals and incredibly supportive partners who are thrilled about the progression of the project.

Your support will get us to the final stage, cover the up front costs of manufacturing and help get Dubler out into the world. On the manufacturing side, we’re working with a globally renowned microphone manufacturer who has a 40-year heritage of sound innovation and audio hardware manufacturing.

2016:

· George graduates from the Royal College of Art with ‘Vochlea’ as his graduation project.

· The project is featured in Dezeen and named as finalist for the International Interaction Design Awards.

2017:

· Vochlea Music becomes a registered business in the UK.

· George becomes an Enterprise Fellow at The Royal Academy of Engineering.

· Vochlea Music is a finalist in the Audio Innovation Awards at SXSW.

· George tours around testing, validating and improving the technology.

2018:

· Vochlea Music graduates from Abbey Road Red— a music technology incubator from Abbey Road Studios.

· George returns to SXSW and wins the pitch competition for Entertainment and Content Creation.

· Cam and Daven join the team to build out the technology, followed by Kelly to develop artist collaboration, communications and culture.

2019: LAUNCH OUR KICKSTARTER!! Continue to work on the development of Dubler Studio Kit and test with musicians.

Late summer 2019: Begin fulfilling Kickstarter orders.

October 2019: Complete fulfilling Kickstarter orders. You'll be using your voice as a MIDI controller way before the end of the year!

We’re a team of four people building a new, game-changing product. We’re on track and we’ve almost completed development— but we still need a community of users and some additional cash flow to kickstart the manufacturing process.

One of the reasons we’ve come to Kickstarter is its alumni of exciting and innovative music technology projects that have come through the platform. As music enthusiasts ourselves we’ve backed many of these projects in the past and loved being part of the process. This alone made Kickstarter feel like a natural choice!

GEORGE

Founder George Wright is an engineer, inventor and designer originally from Leeds, England. He is an Enterprise Fellow with the Royal Academy of Engineering, graduate of the University of Oxford, the Royal College of Art and Imperial College London. Alongside his role at Vochlea Music, he is an avid musician, frontman of a 50’s rock n roll band (Yes, really) and founding member of design studio The F_T_R.

DAVEN

Founder and technical lead Daven Sanassy is a software engineer with 8 years of industrial experience and 4 years in academic research. He has a PhD in stochastic simulation algorithm research including the use of machine learning methods to optimise algorithmic performance. His professional experience includes working in 'triple A' game development and writing software for a London based audio streaming company. Daven is a massive drum and bass head and loves the occasional mixing session on his beloved Technics 1210s.

CAM

Senior engineer Cam Thomas is a C++ and Python developer with expertise in machine learning and audio. His prior work has included developing multichannel audio recognition software for live sports broadcasting, and at Goldsmiths he collaborated on developing state-of-the art neural audio synthesis for a famous trip-hop outfit. At home Cam is an Ableton producer & Max/MSP enthusiast.

KELLY

Head of culture and communications Kelly Angood has been supporting growth for technology, design and hardware start-ups since 2010. She's launched 5 of her own Kickstarter campaigns, and helped dozens of others find success.

Risks and challenges

We’ve spent a lot of time finding the right manufacturer to bring our technology from prototype to mass market. We have signed a top-tier audio manufacturer partner with 40 years experience building the world’s most trustworthy brands to bring the Dubler USB microphone to market.

The Dubler software has been through rigorous testing, and as a small, dedicated team leveraging years of experience in academic research, product development, machine learning and audio development have been working on it solidly for over a year.

Together with our partners, the Vochlea Music team is confident in our abilities and are committed to delivering this product on time and with great quality. We will keep our backers up-to-date the whole way through and are available for your questions at: inventorgeorge@vochlea.co.uk or over in the comments section.

Concerned about delivery? Collectively, we’ve produced and delivered a huge variety of products and worked across multiple crowdfunding campaigns. Kelly, in particular, has shipped thousands of Kickstarter rewards on time!

As a team, we will do everything within our power to get your Dubler Studio Kit to you as soon as we can.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge £1,750 or more
About US$ 2,320

EDU. PACK — Ten [10] Dubler Studio Kits

41% OFF FUTURE RETAIL PRICE OF £3000 [$4980]

If you're based in London, we'll come and help you get set-up and give you a Dubler tutorial! For everywhere else, we offer a remote [Skype] set-up and tutorial to get you up and running in your classroom.